Lawley

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 333 This is a proceeding in quo warranto. The complaint charges that the defendants have "usurped, intruded into and unlawfully held and exercised," and so continue wrongfully and without right to exercise a certain franchise for the construction and maintenance of a toll road starting from a certain point in Napa county and extending into and terminating at a certain point in Lake county, and for the collection of tolls thereon, and asks the judgment of the court that said franchise be declared to have ceased and *Page 334 terminated on the death of the original grantee, "that the defendants herein be adjudged as usurping and intruding into and unlawfully holding said franchise," and that they be excluded therefrom, etc. Judgment passed for the plaintiff, and this appeal is prosecuted by the defendants from said judgment and from the order denying them a new trial. The franchise involved here was granted to one "John Lawley and his associates" by an act of the legislature of 1865-66. Said act reads as follows: "Section 1. John Lawley, and such…

The respondents have petitioned this court for the reopening of this cause and a reconsideration of the points originally urged by them in favor of the judgment. After an extended consultation the justices of this court have reached the conclusion that, upon a rehearing, there would be no likelihood of a recession from the result arrived at in the original opinion filed herein. We may remark, however, that we keenly appreciate the gravity and importance of the ultimate question submitted for decision in this cause, both in its legal aspect and in its effect upon the parties to the action, whatever may be the final decision; but, we may further observe, it is a source of much comfort to us to know that, if we have conceived erroneous views upon the legal questions, upon the solution of which the ultimate result must depend, there is another court that can correct the errors of our judgment. It is said in the petition that "for over forty years these defendants have exacted tolls on this road"; that "at the present time appellants are bleeding the public and the public has no redress," and that "if the time has not come, it will soon come when the profits from this toll road will…